Reading Response On "My Life Next Door" by Huntley Fitzpatrick

In the book “My Life Next Door” by Huntley Fitzpatrick, the message is that lying doesn’t get you anywhere with your issues in life, it just makes things worse.  The story is about a teen girl named Samantha Reed, who lives in a big house with her older sister named Tracy and her mother.  Next door, the Garretts are the opposite of the Reeds, loud, exciting, messy, and loving.  One day,  Jase Garrett climbs onto Samantha’s terrace and this alters everything.  Samantha and Jase end up falling deeply in love.  Samantha becomes part of Jase’s family, babysitting his siblings and hanging out in his room.  Out of nowhere, a challenging problem just falls into her lap.  How will Samantha resolve this problem?

Firstly, an example of lying is when Samantha’s best friend Nan lied to her about being intelligent and great at state tests/regents.  The truth was that Nan would cheat on each test by keeping an electronic in her backpack, that was open.  After Samantha figured this out, Nan stopped talking to her anymore.  Nan lying to Samantha about taking tests only resulted in Samantha getting hurt, which didn’t do any good.  Samantha thought Nan hated her!  When Samantha found Nan, she says to Samantha, “You’re rich and beautiful.  You have the perfect life, the perfect body, the perfect grade point average, and you never have to work for a thing.”  This quote shows that Nan is jealous of Samantha and can’t stand it any longer.  In addition, Nan says, “I don’t need your pity.  And I don’t want your friendship.”  Nan has given up on friendship, which portrays that she is hopeless.  Samantha was sad about this outcome, but decided that there was nothing she could do to stay friends. 

Secondly, another example of lying occurs towards the end of the book, when Samantha’s mother said she didn’t hit anybody the night that Jase's (Samantha’s boyfriend) dad got hit by a car.  However,  Samantha’s mom admits that she did hit Jase’s dad in the car by accident, while Samantha was asleep.  Samantha’s reaction to this is “Mom did something wrong.  You know it.  I know it.  Something that hurt someone seriously.”  Samantha said this to Clay,  her mother’s boyfriend and assistant for politics because Samantha’s mother is the President in their town Stony Bay.  Samantha is angry that her mom won’t confess for her mistake that she made and is annoyed.  Clay states to Samantha, “Shouldn’t your first concern be for your own mother?  You know how hard that she works for her job.  How much it means to her.  Could you really live with yourself if you tool it away?”  As you can see, by Samantha’s mother lying it just created chaos between herself and Samantha.

Overall,  I loved this book and the plot in general.  I would definitely recommend people to read this book who enjoy reading drama/romance. “My Life Next Door” shows Samantha’s thoughts and her perspective in a fascinating way.